Shanghainese's last gasp

• Source: The Global Times
• [20:43 June 03 2009]
• Comments

About Chinese dialects

Classified as a Sino-Tibetan language, Shanghainese is a dialect of Wu Chinese spoken in the city of Shanghai and the surrounding region.

As one of the three major dialects of China alongside Putonghua and Cantonese, Shanghainese has fallen increasingly out of use, especially among the younger generation.

Shanghainese, like other Wu dialects, is largely not mutually intelligible with other Chinese dialects such as standard Putonghua, or even other sub-branches of the Wu language group.

Apart from Shanghai, Wu is spoken in most of Zhejiang Province, southern Jiangsu Province, as well as small parts of Anhui, Jiangxi and Fujian provinces.

Major Wu dialects include those of Shanghai, Suzhou, Wenzhou, Hangzhou, Shaoxing, Jinhua, Yongkang, and Quzhou.